city of dragons 02 - fire storm

by Val St. Crowe

Someone started banging on my door. “Penny, it’s Alastair!” came Felicity’s voice.

  “Speak of the devil,” I muttered, hurrying over to open the door.

  “He’s here,” she said. “He’s outside. He can’t get in because of Ophelia’s wards, but he’s pissed off.”

  I turned to Lachlan. “So much for the rest of his life being important, huh?”

  Lachlan’s nostrils flared. “Let’s go blast a hole in him like we did to the hotel, huh?”

  I reached out for his hand. “Sounds good to me.”

  * * *

  Except it didn’t work.

  Lachlan and I stood holding hands in the lobby, staring through an open doorway at a seething Alastair. I tried to call down the crazy magic that I’d called down the night before, but I couldn’t find it. Before, it had come to us unbidden. Now it was nowhere to be found.

  I had tried to throw a few fireballs at Alastair, but he just dodged them.

  Alastair’s magic bounced off the wards, which made him even angrier. “You sent me to that cold stone prison, where it leaches the heat from my bones, you bitch!” he screamed. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  I looked at Lachlan. “You have to bite me.”

  “You think?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s got to be it, because the time we did the thing with the bullets—”

  “Okay,” he said, eyeing Alastair warily. “Give me your wrist.”

  Behind me, the phone was ringing on the front desk. Felicity answered it. “Purple Dolphin, how may I help you?” she said in a high-pitched voice.

  I gave my hand to Lachlan.

  He brought my wrist to his lips.

  I felt the smooth caress of his teeth.

  Alastair roared. “You’re giving that mutt your blood?”

  “No,” said Felicity into the phone. “I don’t think it would be a good time to check out.”

  Lachlan’s sharp teeth pricked my skin.

  Magic flared to life between us. I felt it, white hot like star matter, filling both of our bodies. I reached out with one hand, sending a bright beam of it through the doorway, straight at Alastair.

  “Yes,” said Felicity, “we’ll definitely issue a refund, but for right now, please stay inside your room. You are safer inside the hotel.”

  Well, it was meant to go straight at Alastair. Thing was, I was sort of bad at aiming this crazy new magic. It grazed him, but it also hit the doorway to the lobby, where one of Ophelia’s wards was placed.

  The amulet crashed down to the ground.

  Alastair’s eyes widened. He reached down to pick it up.

  I turned back to Felicity. “Tell the guests to get out.”

  Alastair took a step forward, over the threshold.

  “Okay,” said Felicity into the phone. “Actually, leave your room. Get the hell out of here as fast as you can!”

  I shot another beam of light at Alastair.

  It went over his head, punching another hole in the wall of my hotel.

  “Damn it,” I muttered.

  Alastair lifted one hand. He used magic to pick Lachlan up off the ground, so that he was floating in midair.

  I used magic to pull Lachlan back down.

  Lachlan himself seemed blissfully unaware. His eyes were closed, and he was sucking at my wrist like he was lost in another world.

  Alastair turned to me, shaking his head. “Why? Why are you doing this? You’re my mate.”

  “Because you’re an asshole,” I snarled. I shot out another bolt of power. It was heading straight for him.

  Alastair brought up both his hands, and blue flames shot out of his fingertips.

  What? I’d never seen anything like that before. We breathed fire, we didn’t shoot it out of our hands. And why was it blue?

  His fire hit my power. The flames and the white bolt both collided. They bounced against each other and ricocheted backward.

  I ducked, using magic to pull Lachlan with me.

  The white bolt sailed over our heads and sizzled against the far wall.

  Alastair leaped into the air, narrowly avoiding his own blue flames, which hit the door frame, burned brightly and then fizzled out.

  Lachlan and I went sprawling on the floor. His teeth came dislodged from my wrist. He looked at me, breathless.

  Behind us, Felicity let out something very like a growl. I looked up to see her clutching her talisman, holding out her hand and glaring at Alastair. She used magic to fling him backwards.

  Alastair, caught off guard, collided with the rack of brochures in the lobby. He cried out in rage, and he flicked his wrist at Felicity.

  Felicity flew high in the air, all the way up to the ceiling. And then she was pounded down into the ground hard. She didn’t move.

  “Felicity!” I went to her, bending over her, shaking her. “Felicity, are you okay?”

  She didn’t respond.

  And then I heard Lachlan grunt.

  I turned around. Lachlan was floating in the air, his hand scrabbling at his neck.

  Alastair chuckled. “Wanted to do this with my bare hands, but magic will have to do. I’ll squeeze the life out of this bastard. He has defiled you, you whore.”

  “Let him go,” I shrieked. “Let him go!” I didn’t have access to the crazy power anymore, but I still had my regular magic. I gathered a breath in my lungs, and breathed out fire.

  Alastair waved a hand at the fire.

  It dissipated.

  “How?” I said, angry and flabbergasted. “Where are you getting this power?”

  Alastair just laughed. “I was willing to go the extra mile.”

  He didn’t have a talisman, and he couldn’t be drinking dragon blood or eating dragon flesh, but he had to be getting extra magic somehow, and there was no other way to do it.

  Unless… the prison, the cold place that leached heat from his bones was made powerful with…

  My lips parted. “Dragon sacrifice. You did dragon sacrifice. You killed Fletcher.”

  Alastair chuckled. “That’s your latest theory? You just want me to be a murderer, don’t you?”

  I swallowed. “You picked him because he was an easy target. He was strung out on heroin and drunk and you didn’t have to work very hard to do it. You gave him a ride home, and then you killed him, and you used him to make yourself more powerful.”

  Alastair narrowed his eyes. “It was the damned surf board, wasn’t it? That’s how you figured it out. I couldn’t get that idiot to leave his surf board in his car. He was intent on bringing it with him. I should have burned it.” And then suddenly, Alastair stumbled backwards and he was choking.

  Lachlan! Alastair had loosened his grip on him while he was talking to me, and now Lachlan was pouring magic at Alastair, even as he floated in the air.

  Alastair used magic to make Lachlan crash against the floor.

  Lachlan groaned.

  Alastair pointed at the tower to the computer that sat on the main desk, and it came free, wires ripping out of the wall. It hurtled through the air and bashed into Lachlan’s head.

  Lachlan stopped moving.

  I ran for him. I put my hands all over him. He was alive, but he was unconscious, and the magic flowing between us wasn’t bright and powerful. Only a tiny thread connected us. I guessed we both needed to be aware for it to be at full power.

  Alastair closed the distance between us. “Get up,” he said, his eyes glowing orange.

  He was compelling me again. I felt it tugging at me. It wanted me to do what he said. I clutched at Lachlan. Maybe that tiny thread would be enough. Maybe if I held on hard enough to him it would break the compulsion.

  And I realized that I wasn’t getting up. I lifted my chin defiantly.

  Alastair’s nostrils flared. His eyes glowed even brighter orange and he peered directly into my eyes. “Get up.” His voice echoed off the walls.

  I didn’t move. I was resisting this. I could resist him.

  He clenched his hand
s into fists. “All right, then, we’ll play this a different way.” He swept past me, going out of the lobby and deeper into the hotel.

  I got up and went after him. “What are you doing?”

  Alastair reappeared, and floating behind him was Connor, who was a statue since it was daytime. He was motionless, cold stone.

  I reached for Connor.

  Alastair whipped him out of the way using magic. “If you want your friend to be free, you will come to me. Willingly. Then you will drop all charges against me. You will submit to wearing special magic bracelets I have made that will keep you tied to the house. And you will be mine, the way fate intended.”

  I threw out magic, trying to grab Connor’s statue.

  But my magic was no match for Alastair’s, who had used dragon sacrifice to bolster his magic. I couldn’t get Connor free.

  Alastair gestured with his hand.

  I was picked up by magic, thrown against the wall. It hurt when I hit, pain in my back and shoulders.

  Then he threw me against the other wall—face first. More pain.

  Alastair did it again and again, throwing my body back and forth like a rag doll, until all I felt was pain. Until I was bruised and bloody and screaming.

  And then he left me huddled in a heap on the floor of my ruined lobby.

  He left with Connor.

  I watched him, and I knew that I needed to shift. I needed to get to the ocean. I needed to heal myself and go after him.

  But I couldn’t move.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Several eternities later, I heard Felicity’s voice.

  “Penny?” she said.

  I groaned.

  “Oh, God, what did he do to you?”

  I opened my eyes. There were two of her. I struggled to focus.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going to get you to the pool.”

  I felt myself be lifted by magic and floated out of the lobby. Felicity took me outside and slowly lowered my body into the cool water of the pool. Outside, the weather had turned gray. Heavy storm clouds were crowding out the horizon. The air was electric and humid and threatening.

  Once submerged, I let the shift ripple through my body, feeling magic and strength and healing fill me.

  When I shifted back, I climbed out of the pool. I shivered in the cold air.

  Felicity gave me a robe.

  I shrugged it on, giving her a once-over. “You okay?”

  “Little sore,” she said. “But fine overall.”

  “I wish there was something that I could do to help heal you.”

  “It’s okay,” said Felicity. “I heal fast anyway. Drakes do.”

  I nodded. “Is Lachlan awake?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  I raced back to the lobby.

  I found Lachlan already on his feet. He was on the phone. When he saw me, he murmured to the person on the other end that he’d check back in later. He hung up and came for me. “What happened?”

  I filled him in as quickly as I could. “He has Connor,” I finished. “Who were you on the phone with?”

  “There will be a warrant for Alastair’s arrest within the hour,” said Lachlan. “We both heard him confess to Fletcher’s murder.”

  “What?” I said. “After this happened, you’re planning on sending the police? Lachlan, the only reason he got locked up last night is because we took him out with our magic. What are the police going to do?”

  “They know to use tranqs,” said Lachlan. “They’ll knock him out and take him away, just like the original plan was to do.”

  “It’s never going to work,” I said. “He can compel me without even being close enough to look into my eyes. What’s he going to do to regular humans?”

  Lachlan swallowed. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Call them off,” I said. “Stop it. They’re all going to get killed.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of power.”

  “So, who does?” I said.

  “Maybe the captain, but—”

  “Call him and make him understand what’s happening.”

  Lachlan shook his head. “I can try, but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

  “Then we need to be there,” I said. “Maybe we can figure out this magic thing between us again.”

  “Yeah, well, you have terrible aim.”

  “I don’t know why,” I said. “I can aim my fireballs just fine. It’s like the power we have is too much, too wild. It just wants to go out and cause damage. It doesn’t want to be controlled or directed.”

  “Why does it have to channel through you?” he said. “Why can’t I do it?”

  “Maybe you can?” I bit my lip.

  “I stopped one of the bullets back when we were fighting the Brotherhood,” he said. “Why don’t you let me try it?”

  “You want to try right now? Shouldn’t we practice?”

  Felicity coughed. “Maybe you should practice outside of the hotel?” She pointed to the big hole in the wall.

  * * *

  Practice made no difference. Lachlan’s controlling the beams of magic, my controlling the beams of magic, we couldn’t make them go straight.

  Our only hope was to get close. We’d been right up on Alastair the first time. If we were in his face, maybe we could do it again.

  That decision made, Lachlan called the police captain to try to convince him that sending the police after Alastair was suicide, that we were the only people who could possibly take him down.

  But it was too late. The captain said he’d already sent at least twenty men over there.

  Lachlan hung up, white faced. “He thinks that sending twenty guys was overkill. He doesn’t get it at all.”

  We got in Lachlan’s car and we raced up Atlantic Avenue—Lachlan had one of those little flashing lights that he could put on his dash, and everyone moved out of our way, which was nifty—until we were all the way to the north side of Sea City.

  It was just getting dark when we pulled up to Alastair’s house.

  The place was a mess.

  Cop cars glutted the driveway, making it impossible for us to get close, so Lachlan just pulled off the road and parked.

  We got out of the car to the sounds of gun fire. Loud pops of bullets shattering the air.

  The police force that had been sent were all firing, but they weren’t firing at Alastair.

  Instead, Alastair stood in the doorway to his house, his eyes glowing orange while the police lined up and marched to shoot each other one after the other.

  The next wave of men trampled over the dead bodies of their fallen comrades.

  “He compelled them to shoot each other,” I muttered, aghast.

  Lachlan took out his own gun. “Maybe we’re making this too complicated, you know? He’s distracted. I’ve got a clear shot.” He cupped the handle with both hands and focused on Alastair. Then he pulled the trigger.

  Everything froze.

  Alastair looked up at us. He was the only thing that could move.

  All the bullets fell to the ground.

  Everything started to move again.

  “Damn it,” said Lachlan. “Damn it, he can stop bullets?”

  “So can we,” I said. “It’s just telekinesis. Hyper-focused telekinesis.”

  “We did it once, anyway,” said Lachlan, reaching for my hand.

  I took it. As we touched, the power surged to life between us. We had figured out that we sort of had to charge it up. It worked when we were connected, him drinking my blood. But it also worked if he had drunk my blood recently, like a lingering battery charge.

  Alastair waved his hand at the police officers. The remaining ones took aim at each other again.

  Lachlan reached out and snatched all the bullets out of the air.

  He forced them to go toward Alastair.

  Alastair knocked them to the ground.

  “So much for that,” Lachlan said.


  Alastair made a gesture with one fist, fingers bursting open.

  And the skulls of the remaining officers exploded.

  “Whoa,” said Lachlan.

  I whimpered. “That’s telekinesis too. Technically, maybe I could do that even without extra magic. Not to that many people at once, but—”

  “Penny,” Alastair’s voice boomed out. “You need to surrender.”

  “We have to get close,” said Lachlan.

  I nodded.

  Still holding hands, we ran for Alastair, dodging the bodies of the fallen policemen. I hated to think of them lying dead this way. I hated to think of their families, the pain they would be going through when they found out. This was senseless. Tragic on an epic scale.

  We had to stop him.

  By the time we arrived at the front door, Alastair had Connor with him.

  Connor blinked, bleary-eyed. He’d just woken up. “What the hell?” he said, struggling to get away from Alastair.

  Alastair laughed. “I’ll kill your little gargoyle friend if you don’t agree to my terms. Admit that you belong to me.”

  “Just try and kill me,” snapped Connor. “You can’t burn me. And you can throw me around all you want with your magic powers. I’m not going to bruise or break. I’m made of living stone. I was created to survive dragon attacks.”

  “And yet you are still vulnerable to steel,” said Alastair, brandishing a knife and putting it to Connor’s throat. He held him by the shoulders, Connor’s back to Alastair’s front. Alastair peered around Connor. “I’ll slit his throat.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  He was using Connor as a shield. If we let loose with our magic, it would kill him.

  I let go of Lachlan’s hand. “Let Connor go.”

  “What are you doing?” said Lachlan, reaching for me.

  “Just let him go,” I said to Alastair. “Don’t hurt him. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

  Alastair sneered. “I’ll let him go when you surrender to me. Put on the bracelets.” He held them out to me.

  I reached for them.

  Lachlan blocked me. “Are you insane? You can’t surrender to him.”

  Alastair moved the knife a little bit, and a spot of dark blood appeared at Connor’s throat.

  “Don’t do it, Penny,” said Connor. “It’s not worth it. I’m his leverage, anyway. He’s not going to kill me.”